Community Radio in Central America: Women

Radio, in Central
America, is an essential tool for communication. With UNESCO
claiming that 75% of homes of the world’s population own a radio, radio becomes
the main source of information for millions of people living in rural areas or
as urban poor where access to information and technology is limited. Radio is
especially important as listeners do not need to be literate in order to
process the information and radios are portable, cheap and can be run on
batteries in areas where there is no reliable source of electricity. A
crucial development in broadcasting has been the proliferation of community
radio stations which, ostensibly outside state and commercial control, have
provided a platform to represent the most marginalized communities in Central America, and have been successfully used to
advance women’s knowledge of their rights.

Central
America has a
long history of using community-run radio for democratic purposes, for example
the infamous Radio Venceremos, which broadcast the FMLN’s messages of
solidarity and warnings to military targeted villages to hide during the El
Salvadoran civil war. Contemporary usage for community radio has broached
environmental activism topics such as the large-scale international-run mining
industry which has been destroying natural resources in Guatemala, El
Salvador and Honduras and is often a platform
for the promotion of indigenous rights.

The power of community radio to
inform and question state practices can be exemplified through governments’ and
corporations’ attempts to silence dissident voices. In El Salvador staff at Radio Victoria in Cabaňas were attacked and
threatened after they broadcast the warnings about the destruction gold mining
would bring to the area from cyanide contamination. Mining activists were
murdered and the Canadian Pacific Rim mining company were suspected by Radio Victoria’s staff for
hiring gang members for the assassinations.

Women in
Community Radio

While it is true that women are
often involved in community radio activities and many small stations have
dedicated programming for women, the stations are largely run by men. Women are
often only given a voice to present weekly “women’s programs”, which are
extremely valid for their focus on reproductive health care, the prevention of domestic
violence and women’s rights awareness. However, women usually are not
integrated throughout the station’s output or at director level. However,
since only 14% of women in Latin America and Europe
work in mass media and the female focused content is limited, community radio
stations remain a vital alternative public sphere to hear women’s voices and
issues on the airwaves.

There are two stations in
particular that made it their mission to focus exclusively on women: dedicated
feminist community stations Radio FIRE in Costa Rica (AM and internet) and
Radio Mujer in Nicaragua (FM). Both stations were set up by and run by women
and offer training and development programs to encourage further female
participation. Radio FIRE (Radio Internacional Feminista) was funded by
American philanthropist and feminist Genevieve Vaughan in 1991 and run by María
Suarez Toro (now retired) who described FIRE’s set-up and early success in an
interview:

“We were a collective that took into account that there were many women
doing local radio programs throughout the world. And instead of building a new
network we would form part of them and invite them to send us their local radio
programs for their local community and we would air them internationally. So
our program became a forum for women who did local radio in any language.”

Radio Mujer was founded by
journalist and activist Ada Luz Monterrey in 1992 and aimed to counter the
traditional exclusivism in Nicaragua
which often disqualified women’s voices from the public sphere, encouraging
female political participation through their programming.

Other organizations have made it
part of their key objectives to increase women’s participation in community
radio production and have made some improvements. Cultural
Survival who have been lobbying the Guatemalan government to give community
radio stations licenses so they can operate legally, have noticed the lack of
female contribution and are therefore encouraging increased involvement with
their training, mainly focusing on the largely rural Mayan population in
Guatemala. Mayan women are doubly marginalized by their status as female and
indigenous in Guatemala’s
political discourse. Rossy Gonzalez, a volunteer at Radio Ixchel in Sumpango
Sacatepéquez views women’s low self-worth being partly to blame for their lack
of involvement in community radio: “It
starts when they are young, women are used to being discouraged rather than
encouraged, being told that they can’t, the idea is that their role is to stay
in the home.”

Despite these positive examples,
and the existence of women’s features on many community stations, barriers
remain in place to prevent gender equality in local broadcasting. Some of these
stem from entrenched sexist attitudes about women’s place being in the home and
out of the public sphere; the media, and radio presenting especially, is
perceived to be a male domain. Furthermore, women are hampered by their
workload, often working a day job but also being expected to raise children and
complete domestic tasks, leaving little time free for radio volunteering.
Unfortunately, safety is also an issue that tends to affect women more than
men, limiting their involvement. Traveling to and from the radio stations,
particularly if at night, in many countries is too dangerous and some women as
a result will not be allowed to make this journey by their families, excluding
them from broadcast representation.

Much more work needs to be achieved
to make community radio stations a safe and inclusive place for women to work
and greater awareness of the importance of gender equality in the media must be
met to keep women’s voices and issues on air. Community radio remains an
essential medium for information dissemination to some of the most
under-represented and least connected people in Central
America, but further lobbying is required to legitimize these
stations in the face of brutal government and corporate harassment to preserve
this alternative media from censorship.

December 20, 2013 by Louise
Morris

Louise Morris is a freelance
journalist and broadcaster who works for CAWN producing media content and
interviewing activists. She is also a fundraiser for Sound Women and is currently
studying for a Masters in Global Media and Post National Communication at the
School of Oriental and African Studies.